230 protects platforms for liability arising from user-generated content. But the point the brief makes is that we need that protection both for when we're the platform, hosting others' user-generated content (such as in the comments), and also when we're the user spreading our message via other platforms, or even hosting user communities on other platforms, which all need Section 230 in order to be available to us.
While I appreciate the defense, the reality is that I have had training in print media. Then later became a blogger. THEN later became a lawyer...
Should NDAA have been spelled out? Maybe. But not necessarily. The article isn't about the NDAA, and I didn't want to down out the technical details I did want to explain about INFORM with additional technical details that weren't necessary to understanding what's wrong with this bill. Plus when people do refer to the NDAA they often do by acronym, rather than by its full name. The only reason to mention it here is so people recognize it as one of these must-pass bills once news about it comes to the fore. But otherwise the NDAA is of little importance to this post.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Why should triggering a panic be legal?
No, I'm sorry, but you'd have to leap over a lot of precedential language to find it illegal.
For instance, it presumes too much to even complain the cry was false. You'd need more than that, like an indifference to the falsity, a la NY Times v. Sullivan.
The issue is that even if it should be illegal, that question was never adjudicated. Holmes just made it up. And it's important to litigate it, before making it the rule, because as I and others have pointed out, you don't want a rule that will deter people from crying out when there really is a fire.
In any case, you can argue that it should be the rule all you want. But the main point of the post is that it is absolutely wrong to suggest that it's what the rule IS.
I get your point but don't agree that it's just a pedantic distinction. I don't think people cite the trope out of a general sense that perhaps certain speech SHOULD trigger some sort of consequence; I think they cite it because they think it DOES. And because they think it does, they can't understand why we can't just have some more regulation to punish other bad speech they think is similar.
And so the regulatory conversation is not one about whether that should be that rule, but a more ignorant tug-of-war between those who think such regulation is absolutely already legally on the table and those who better understand the actual reality that it's not. Which means we can never have a useful conversation about what the regulation should be since we're not all on the same page about how much would need to change to get there (and also why that much change would likely be bad).
Re: why would nbc,cbs, not want more people to view their advert
That may be a consideration, but the explanation may instead be that they are trying to extract more money from cable retransmission agreements, and if there's a free alternative, then those deals will be less lucrative for them.
In other words, it weakens their monopoly. Which is what this statutory provision expressly was going to do.
This was the 90s, and just a small group of friends, so I don't think fear of a harassment charge was operative here. Also, there was nothing comedic about it; I wanted to discuss it with the clinical detachment we were using to discuss other e-commerce success stories. But they couldn't, and my sense was that they just thought it was too icky a topic and couldn't get past that reflex. As a result, it felt to me like there was an almost impenetrable brick wall that I couldn't get past. It was weird, and unpleasant. I felt almost physically trapped because there was nothing I could say, or intellectually explain, to unstick the conversation without abandoning the topic altogether. Like tires spinning in mud, I couldn't get any traction to move the conversation forward. It left me with a weird sense of powerlessness that I can still remember vividly today.
Thanks, BF! Of course, you should always agree with me :-p
I liked the Stargate TV shows because Samantha was a smart, capable woman who didn't die and didn't have to have love affairs with her colleagues to be an equal protagonist.
Also later MASH episodes, particularly with the arrival of Potter, BJ, and Charles, and the increasing creative influence of Alda, were much better. The one where Lt. Kelley stands up to Hawkeye stands out in particular. And Swit didn't sell Hoolihan short, especially after the character divorced. The frustrations she experienced being a career woman in that age were well-told.
No. You still have to issue-spot and know where to look for the rules, which won't work out well with a ticking clock if you don't have enough of a mastery of the subject to quickly know where to look. And you also still need to be able to write a cogent analysis, which open notes won't help you with there either.
It's not really a question of whether the government v. corporation distinction rings true for you. They ARE different, as a matter of law and also practical reality.
"It is clearly wrong for the government, or some corporation, to have the power to judge and control the content of public discourse."
These are two very different things. We can always have more companies; but there only is one government.
Sure, there may be issues with moderation choices companies make when they either make too many or too few (which they sometimes even do all at the same time!). But the consequences are nowhere near as severe as when it's the government making those choices about what speech to favor.
Because a company's bad choices doesn't prevent you from getting a company that could make better ones; as long as you have the right to free speech you can even go start your own. But a government's bad choices can prevent you from ever having a better company, or, worse, a better government that might make better choices.
In the system we USED to have, "first to invent," this might make sense (maybe). But now that we've switched to "first to file" (which I think is dumb for other reasons) then I don't think it would be possible for a would-be patent-seeker to be so careful. In fact, we've created incentives not to be.
There was an idea I was wrestling with that I couldn't get into the piece, about why not sue the car manufacturer too? I left it out because I wasn't sure they hadn't, and wasn't going to be able to easily ascertain the answer.
I think it might have been easier to see why this decision would have been bad if it had been about the car manufacturer. If you give someone the tools that could be used in good or bad ways, should you be liable? Some people do think yes, but there's a cost to that, because it means you'll take away the tools from someone who wanted to use them for good.
But in this case, the cost of taking the tools away are even higher because it means we're taking away the tools for SPEECH. And we pointedly have Section 230 to make sure we don't lose those tools.
On the post: Wherein The Copia Institute Tells The Eleventh Circuit That Florida's SB 7072 Law Violates Our Rights
Re: Re:
230 protects platforms for liability arising from user-generated content. But the point the brief makes is that we need that protection both for when we're the platform, hosting others' user-generated content (such as in the comments), and also when we're the user spreading our message via other platforms, or even hosting user communities on other platforms, which all need Section 230 in order to be available to us.
On the post: Congress Tries To Ram The Ill-informed INFORM Bill Into The Must-pass NDAA
Re: Bit rot happens.
ACTUALLY...
While I appreciate the defense, the reality is that I have had training in print media. Then later became a blogger. THEN later became a lawyer...
Should NDAA have been spelled out? Maybe. But not necessarily. The article isn't about the NDAA, and I didn't want to down out the technical details I did want to explain about INFORM with additional technical details that weren't necessary to understanding what's wrong with this bill. Plus when people do refer to the NDAA they often do by acronym, rather than by its full name. The only reason to mention it here is so people recognize it as one of these must-pass bills once news about it comes to the fore. But otherwise the NDAA is of little importance to this post.
On the post: Why Falsely Claiming It's Illegal To Shout Fire In A Crowded Theater Distorts Any Conversation About Online Speech
Re: Re: Re: Re: Why should triggering a panic be legal?
No, I'm sorry, but you'd have to leap over a lot of precedential language to find it illegal.
For instance, it presumes too much to even complain the cry was false. You'd need more than that, like an indifference to the falsity, a la NY Times v. Sullivan.
On the post: Why Falsely Claiming It's Illegal To Shout Fire In A Crowded Theater Distorts Any Conversation About Online Speech
Re: Re: Laugh Out Loud Out Loud
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohDB5gbtaEQ
On the post: Why Falsely Claiming It's Illegal To Shout Fire In A Crowded Theater Distorts Any Conversation About Online Speech
Re: Re: Why should triggering a panic be legal?
The issue is that even if it should be illegal, that question was never adjudicated. Holmes just made it up. And it's important to litigate it, before making it the rule, because as I and others have pointed out, you don't want a rule that will deter people from crying out when there really is a fire.
In any case, you can argue that it should be the rule all you want. But the main point of the post is that it is absolutely wrong to suggest that it's what the rule IS.
On the post: Why Falsely Claiming It's Illegal To Shout Fire In A Crowded Theater Distorts Any Conversation About Online Speech
Re: This argument tends to remind me
I get your point but don't agree that it's just a pedantic distinction. I don't think people cite the trope out of a general sense that perhaps certain speech SHOULD trigger some sort of consequence; I think they cite it because they think it DOES. And because they think it does, they can't understand why we can't just have some more regulation to punish other bad speech they think is similar.
And so the regulatory conversation is not one about whether that should be that rule, but a more ignorant tug-of-war between those who think such regulation is absolutely already legally on the table and those who better understand the actual reality that it's not. Which means we can never have a useful conversation about what the regulation should be since we're not all on the same page about how much would need to change to get there (and also why that much change would likely be bad).
On the post: Why Falsely Claiming It's Illegal To Shout Fire In A Crowded Theater Distorts Any Conversation About Online Speech
Re:
Thanks, fixed.
On the post: Why Section 230 'Reform' Effectively Means Section 230 Repeal
Re:
I meant literally "non-profit" organizations like Wikimedia, as opposed to for-profit commercial enterprises like Twitter.
On the post: Locast Shuts Down, As Yet Again A Bad Interpretation Of Copyright Law Makes The World Worse
Re:
Following the law is asking for a lawsuit?
The problem here isn't actually with the law; it's that the court ignored it and replaced it with its own different law instead.
On the post: Locast Shuts Down, As Yet Again A Bad Interpretation Of Copyright Law Makes The World Worse
Re: why would nbc,cbs, not want more people to view their advert
That may be a consideration, but the explanation may instead be that they are trying to extract more money from cable retransmission agreements, and if there's a free alternative, then those deals will be less lucrative for them.
In other words, it weakens their monopoly. Which is what this statutory provision expressly was going to do.
On the post: The Rule Of Fences, And Why Congress Needs To Temper Its Appetite To Undermine Internet Service Provider Liability Protection
Re: 'I'm sure those leopards will only go after my opponents...'
Interesting, but not sure it's necessarily correct.
Sometimes I think it might be:
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20210109/13053746025/dear-section-230-critics-when-senators-ha wley-cruz-are-your-biggest-allies-time-to-rethink.shtml
But often I think Congress just doesn't understand what they are about to break:
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20210723/09303347230/senator-klobuchar-proposes-unconstitut ional-law-that-would-kill-legions-people-if-trump-were-still-president.shtml
https://www.techdirt.co m/articles/20210205/12142446194/senators-warner-hirono-klobuchar-demand-end-internet-economy.shtml
h ttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20210625/09355347057/congressman-nadler-throws-worlds-worst-slumber -party-order-to-destroy-internet.shtml
And the problem is that they don't care to learn.
On the post: A Guy Walks Into A Bra
Re: Re: Re: Discomfort, Bras, Men, Etc.
I used the word "clinical detachment" in the post for a reason.
On the post: A Guy Walks Into A Bra
Re:
One of these days I need to write a post about this too... Because FWIW my mom was a COBOL programmer and in tech since the 60s.
On the post: A Guy Walks Into A Bra
Re: Discomfort, Bras, Men, Etc.
This was the 90s, and just a small group of friends, so I don't think fear of a harassment charge was operative here. Also, there was nothing comedic about it; I wanted to discuss it with the clinical detachment we were using to discuss other e-commerce success stories. But they couldn't, and my sense was that they just thought it was too icky a topic and couldn't get past that reflex. As a result, it felt to me like there was an almost impenetrable brick wall that I couldn't get past. It was weird, and unpleasant. I felt almost physically trapped because there was nothing I could say, or intellectually explain, to unstick the conversation without abandoning the topic altogether. Like tires spinning in mud, I couldn't get any traction to move the conversation forward. It left me with a weird sense of powerlessness that I can still remember vividly today.
On the post: A Guy Walks Into A Bra
Re:
Thanks, BF! Of course, you should always agree with me :-p
I liked the Stargate TV shows because Samantha was a smart, capable woman who didn't die and didn't have to have love affairs with her colleagues to be an equal protagonist.
Also later MASH episodes, particularly with the arrival of Potter, BJ, and Charles, and the increasing creative influence of Alda, were much better. The one where Lt. Kelley stands up to Hawkeye stands out in particular. And Swit didn't sell Hoolihan short, especially after the character divorced. The frustrations she experienced being a career woman in that age were well-told.
On the post: It's Time We Talk About Getting Rid Of The Bar Exam. And Here's Why.
Re: Re: Re: bar exam test
No. You still have to issue-spot and know where to look for the rules, which won't work out well with a ticking clock if you don't have enough of a mastery of the subject to quickly know where to look. And you also still need to be able to write a cogent analysis, which open notes won't help you with there either.
On the post: Senator Klobuchar Proposes An Unconstitutional Law That Would Kill Legions Of People If Trump Were Still President
Re: Re: Re: Re: Not such a good idea now is it?
It's not really a question of whether the government v. corporation distinction rings true for you. They ARE different, as a matter of law and also practical reality.
On the post: Senator Klobuchar Proposes An Unconstitutional Law That Would Kill Legions Of People If Trump Were Still President
Re: Re: Not such a good idea now is it?
"It is clearly wrong for the government, or some corporation, to have the power to judge and control the content of public discourse."
These are two very different things. We can always have more companies; but there only is one government.
Sure, there may be issues with moderation choices companies make when they either make too many or too few (which they sometimes even do all at the same time!). But the consequences are nowhere near as severe as when it's the government making those choices about what speech to favor.
Because a company's bad choices doesn't prevent you from getting a company that could make better ones; as long as you have the right to free speech you can even go start your own. But a government's bad choices can prevent you from ever having a better company, or, worse, a better government that might make better choices.
On the post: Think Tech Companies Are Too Monopolistic? Then Stop Giving Them Patent Monopolies
Re:
In the system we USED to have, "first to invent," this might make sense (maybe). But now that we've switched to "first to file" (which I think is dumb for other reasons) then I don't think it would be possible for a would-be patent-seeker to be so careful. In fact, we've created incentives not to be.
On the post: Why The Ninth Circuit's Decision In Lemmon V. Snap Is Wrong On Section 230 And Bad For Online Speech
Re: Re: Re:
There was an idea I was wrestling with that I couldn't get into the piece, about why not sue the car manufacturer too? I left it out because I wasn't sure they hadn't, and wasn't going to be able to easily ascertain the answer.
I think it might have been easier to see why this decision would have been bad if it had been about the car manufacturer. If you give someone the tools that could be used in good or bad ways, should you be liable? Some people do think yes, but there's a cost to that, because it means you'll take away the tools from someone who wanted to use them for good.
But in this case, the cost of taking the tools away are even higher because it means we're taking away the tools for SPEECH. And we pointedly have Section 230 to make sure we don't lose those tools.
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